Thought for Wednesday 29 September

John 3:20-21 (New Living Translation) All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.” Today’s reading is a small part of a conversation Jesus was having with Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee and Jewish religious leader.  In the first verse of today’s chapter, we are told it was ‘after dark one evening’ when he chose to meet with the Lord, presumably because he did not want his fellow Jewish leaders to know what he was doing. Later in John’s gospel ch8 v12, Jesus announces to the people ‘I am the light of the world.  If you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life’. I read somewhere that darkness is not so much the opposite of light, it is more the absence of light. Most wicked acts are carried out secretly and under the cover of darkness.  Light is revealing while darkness is concealing.  While darkness can hide evil deeds, the light can reveal things we would prefer to have kept secret so that all may see, but at least it brings them out into the open. Since Adam and Eve, humankind have been drawn towards sinful acts, inherited sin from so long ago.  In this chapter we learn that to reject Jesus means that we are also rejecting God and the only way to achieve salvation from this inherited sin is through Christ alone. It is important to note that in today’s verses, people who do evil don’t just disregard or ignore the light, they HATE it because it will reveal things that the evil doer would prefer to remain hidden forever.  You would think that any exposure of evil deeds by an individual would lead to anguish and shame, maybe even self-loathing but in some cases, (we’ve all seen them in newspapers, books or television) the perpetrators don’t seem to be affected in this way and show no remorse. Life without light is not an attractive proposition.  What would total darkness without the sun during the day and without the moon and the stars at night be like?  What good reason could we possibly have to want a life without light?  Jesus is the light of the world, all we have to do is let him in.  The Holy Spirit will have made him aware of all the things in our lives that we now regret but if we look to him and his amazing grace, all will be well. Prayer   Heavenly Father, we thank you for being the light of the world.  Without you, our darkness would be total.  We pray that the small amount of your light that each one of us possess may be used to point others to your true and total light.    Amen.